Fig. 2

Adhesive state changes of individual cells is modelled by an intracellular adhesion receptor regulation model. a Adhesive interactions between cells [black arrows in (b), (c)] are modelled by the probabilistic reorientation operator \(\mathcal {R}\) in the LGCA model that depends on adhesive states a _i (r,k) of individual cells determined by the deterministic intracellular adhesion receptor regulation model (Additional file 1). b Intrinsic adhesion heterogeneity is modelled by stochastic initial adhesive states y ₀ (proportional to c, see Additional file 1) and random maximum adhesive states R ₀ (green). c Extrinsically-controlled adhesion heterogeneity is modelled by multiplying adhesive states of single cells by a weight (red) that increases linearly with the cell density in the local environment, resulting in an adhesion receptor regulation model that also depends on the occupation states in neighbouring nodes (red arrows)